Shot in Norway, Great Britain and Jamaica, the 25th episode in the James Bond saga and fifth and final film starring Daniel Craig as the famous secret agent on Her Majesty’s service, also used locations in Southern Italy for the first time, choosing several characteristic locations and breath-taking landscapes.
The Italian part of the story focuses on a carefree moment for James who, happy with his beloved Madeleine (Léa Seydoux), has decided to break with his past.
The couple travels on the State Road 18, which features spectacular sheer drops over the Tyrrhenian Sea near Maratea, to reach Matera through a tunnel a several hundred metres long built near the Church of St. Augustine in the Sasso Barisano area. The couple’s hotel room with view of Matera’s Sassi was created near piazzetta Pascoli.
Shortly after, in Gravina in Puglia, its bridge of the Acqueduct arching above the rocky settlement, sees James forced to leap over the side to get away from the people chasing him. The village in Lucania and the borgo of Apulia – actually 30km distant from each other – meld in the fiction into a single landscape redolent of ancient traditions, rock churches and thousand-year-old caves dug out by hand and modelled by the forces of nature.
Having reacquired his Aston Martin, as always equipped with super accessories to tackle the dangers lurking everywhere even in an apparently quiet situation like a romantic holiday in Italy, Bond and Madeleine fly top speed to the train station of Sapri, used as the stopping point for Civita Lucana (in reality 200km from Matera but in the film not far from the couple’s hotel). From here, the former 007 and his lover hurriedly leave the car to head inside the station. Amidst a hundred-odd extras as baggage-carrying passengers, Madeleine gets onto a waiting train and says goodbye to her man who stays on the platform.
This is how the Italian part of the story ends.
Shot in Norway, Great Britain and Jamaica, the 25th episode in the James Bond saga and fifth and final film starring Daniel Craig as the famous secret agent on Her Majesty’s service, also used locations in Southern Italy for the first time, choosing several characteristic locations and breath-taking landscapes.
The Italian part of the story focuses on a carefree moment for James who, happy with his beloved Madeleine (Léa Seydoux), has decided to break with his past.
The couple travels on the State Road 18, which features spectacular sheer drops over the Tyrrhenian Sea near Maratea, to reach Matera through a tunnel a several hundred metres long built near the Church of St. Augustine in the Sasso Barisano area. The couple’s hotel room with view of Matera’s Sassi was created near piazzetta Pascoli.
Shortly after, in Gravina in Puglia, its bridge of the Acqueduct arching above the rocky settlement, sees James forced to leap over the side to get away from the people chasing him. The village in Lucania and the borgo of Apulia – actually 30km distant from each other – meld in the fiction into a single landscape redolent of ancient traditions, rock churches and thousand-year-old caves dug out by hand and modelled by the forces of nature.
Having reacquired his Aston Martin, as always equipped with super accessories to tackle the dangers lurking everywhere even in an apparently quiet situation like a romantic holiday in Italy, Bond and Madeleine fly top speed to the train station of Sapri, used as the stopping point for Civita Lucana (in reality 200km from Matera but in the film not far from the couple’s hotel). From here, the former 007 and his lover hurriedly leave the car to head inside the station. Amidst a hundred-odd extras as baggage-carrying passengers, Madeleine gets onto a waiting train and says goodbye to her man who stays on the platform.
This is how the Italian part of the story ends.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Columbia Pictures, EON Productions, Danjag LLC
Having left the Secret Service, James Bond is living quietly in Jamaica when his peaceful existence is brusquely interrupted by his old friend Felix Leiter who asks for his help in liberating scientist Waldo Obruchev.
